The Girl Who Spun Through Time
by Ser Serendipity
Summary: The Byakugan is one of the world's most legendary bloodlines. And just like the rest, it has a dangerous secret of its own. Now, thanks to the unforeseeable, Hinata Hyuuga finds herself given a unique chance to change everything. It's too bad such things never go as planned. Hinata-centric, Time Travel
1. Chapter 1

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Hinata could see everything.

That was her gift. The Byakugan sees all.

But she'd never wished that she _couldn't_ see everything.

She could see all of Konoha. Or what was left of it.

Everything recognizable was gone. The Hokage's tower was gone: the academy was gone.

Her home was gone, completely demolished, left to pile up with the rest of the rubble that had stacked itself against Konoha's walls. All of her possessions, what little they were, were doubtlessly lost forever in the mass of wood and concrete.

It had all been replaced by a crater. The walls of Konoha stood tall, but the village they protected had become nothing more than an enormous pothole.

Hinata found that, at the moment, she hardly cared.

She could see every person that remained in the crater that had once been her home. Standing, slumped, lying prone, others kneeling next to them, tears in their eyes, pinned beneath support beans, being shaken by students, eyes open, eyes closed, faces whole and faces empty.

She could see two thousand six hundred and thirteen circulating shinobi chakra systems. Less than half of the villages' total number of ninja.

The rest… weren't moving. Weren't breathing, weren't responding to the cries of their students or their teammates or their friends.

The rest were dead.

There were two more chakra systems in the village. These two were special.

The first was right in front of her. It was completely unlike anything else in the village. In a land of dust and dark, this chakra shone like the sun, bathing her face in a light only she could see.

Naruto Uzumaki's face may have been horrified, his eyes wide and his mouth open, but his chakra hadn't stopped being warm.

But there was something wrong with it. It flickered, red highlights shooting through it like neon, and something heavy, malevolent and oppressive and _cold_, was working its way through the unbelievable light, plastering it a sickly hue and filling its tenketsu with tar.

It was chakra, but chakra nothing like Hinata had ever seen. Chakra wasn't supposed to remind her of industrial waste, of mudslides, of the kind of silt drudged up from the bottom of a lake.

The other chakra system, the one to her right, was the source of the polluted chakra.

It belonged to a man with orange hair and purple, rippling eyes.

Pain.

The man who had destroyed Konoha so utterly that nothing but rubble remained: who had singlehandedly killed half its ninja, and who had crucified Naruto where he lay, cold black rods slicing through his hands and legs and pinning him to the dust.

Hinata took another trembling step forward.

The world seemed empty. The only sound in it was the unsteady plodding of her feet in the dirt.

Hinata's whole body was on fire. Broken ribs ground together, and something thick and coppery dripped steadily from her mouth. There was a cut on her forehead, running blood into her eye, but it didn't obscure her vision: the Byakugan could see right through it.

She'd tried to save Naruto.

It hadn't gone well.

Hinata stayed on her feet. Her injuries didn't matter. The pain in her chest didn't matter.

All that mattered were the horrified blue eyes.

Naruto's mouth was moving, but words weren't emerging. Pain was just watching the both of them, frowning slightly.

He looked almost curious.

Hinata, like most ninja, could read lips. She could read the lips of the terrified genin trying to get their academy teacher on his feet, she could read the lips of the female ANBU screaming at her teammate to pull himself out from underneath several tons of concrete and shattered wood, and she could read Naruto's.

Why, he said, his face screwed up in pain and maybe even fear, and it broke Hinata's heart to see that.

Why are you doing this.

Hinata.

Stop.

Please stop.

She thought she might laugh.

As if she could just "stop".

Instead, she just smiled, falling to her knees in front of him, resting her hands on the rod struck through his hands, pinning him to the ground.

The blue eyes grew wider. Naruto closed his mouth.

Hinata bent in close. "Naruto," she said quietly, taking great pains not to choke on the blood in her mouth, even as it dribbled from her lips.

"Hinata," he whispered back, sounding hollow. The alien chakra in him surged, and Hinata watched his heart jump a beat. "Stop, please. Before he hurts you more."

Pain continued to watch the both of them. Slowly, one of his hands began to rise, the fingers relaxed.

"I can't stop, Naruto," Hinata said, closing her eyes. She could still see everything: she was just so tired.

Something fell over her.

The turgid chakra. It surrounded her, coating her system, tensing itself in anticipation.

"And why," the man who had destroyed her home said, his voice cautious and low, "would you not? If you continue to fight…"

The chakra tensed. Hinata felt herself rise into the air slightly, suddenly weighing less.

"You will die," the man concluded, extending his arm fully.

Hinata sighed painfully, and opened her eyes.

"I can't stop…" she whispered, loud enough for both Pain and Naruto to hear.

"I can't stop, because…"

And she remembered something her father had told her long ago.

###

"You'll fail," he said, his voice as flat as the dojo's floor.

Hinata flinched, shuffling her feet. She kept her hands rigid at her sides, but couldn't help the nervous movement of her fingers. They shifted, looking for something to fidget with.

Her father continued, slowly pacing on the gleaming wood floor, his long white robe soundlessly sliding along the surface. His face was completely unreadable: his mouth pulled down into a habitual frown, his pale eyes regarding her unblinkingly.

"I am not telling you this out of spite, Hinata," he said, stopping and staring her in the eyes.

"I-I know, father," Hinata said quietly, unable to maintain the eye contact and dropping her gaze to the spotless floor.

He paused, and he felt his stare boring into the top of her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping he would look away.

Hoping he would look away from her failing.

"I don't believe you are ready for this art, yet," he said calmly. "Nevertheless, you will certainly never achieve it unless you try." He narrowed his eyes. "But know this: you will probably fail. Many, many times, before you get it right."

Hinata pursed her lips, trying to keep her shoulders from shaking, trying to keep her voice from trembling. "Is… is the sixty-four palms really so hard to master-?"

"You must have _absolute confidence_," he said, cutting off her barely-audible voice, "that your strikes will land. All of them. There must not be a shred of doubt in your mind, not a single misguided worry. If there is, you will fail."

Hinata's eyes opened wide. "Like Neji…"

"Yes." Hiashi sounded almost amused. "Neji believes that he is a vassal of fate. Even if his… "talk" with Uzumaki has convinced him somewhat otherwise, he still believes that there is a degree of predestination to his actions."

The Hyuuga clan head shifted. "And In a way, he is right."

Hinata finally raised her head, looking her father in the eyes. She desperately kept her arms at her sides: they were begging to clasp in front of her. "He is?"

She remembered the horrible things Neji had said about being a slave, about the hopelessness of his situation, and of the main house of inflicting it upon him. How could she not?

After Naruto had broken his jaw, he had stopped talking that way, even begun to train with her to help improve her jūken.

But her father was saying that he was _right_? That Naruto had been wrong?

She shook her head. "That can't be. Neji… destiny doesn't-"

"No." Her father answered her question before she could finish it. "Destiny doesn't work like that."

He sighed, and sank to his knees. Hinata blinked, and followed him to hers. "However, his _belief _that his actions are 'meant' to be has given him access to some of our clans most powerful jutsu at a very young age. Do you understand?"

"I… I don't think I do, f-father." Hinata clenched her hand, not looking away from her father's seemingly empty eyes.

He sighed again. "Hinata," he said seriously. "What I'm about to tell you is one of the deepest secrets of our clan. A year ago, I wouldn't have considered giving this information to you… but you have shown tremendous improvement since the chūnin exams, and so I believe you are ready."

Hinata stared, her back unconsciously straightening. "Thank you, father." She hesitated, her natural doubt reasserting itself again. "But, what is this secret?"

Hiashi took a deep breath. "The Byakugan is a feared doujutsu, yes?"

Hinata nodded silently, paying her father her absolute attention.

"This is not just because of our visual acuity," he continued. "Of course, the range and discerning ability of our eyes are something to fear on their own: most of our clan ranks among the most lethal taijutsu ninja in the world thanks to these advantages alone."

He shifted forward, bringing his hand up and tapping his forehead. "But our eyes are capable of far more than just that."

"What?" Hinata's hand clenched. She focused on it, suppressing its shaking.

"The Byakugan sees all," Hiashi said calmly. "Even that which is normally invisible, correct?"

Hinata nodded again.

"This goes beyond the obvious. Chakra, hidden seals: all that is child's play. A Hyuuga can instinctively grasp such things."

Hiashi shifted his legs, crossing them under his body. Hinata mirrored him.

Her father brought his hand up to his chin.

"But there are deeper things. With the right mindset, under the right conditions, the Byakugan can perceive far more."

"Like what, father?" Hinata asked. She was enthralled, barely paying any attention to the twitching of her hand and the fatigue in her legs. Her father had never confided in her so seriously.

"Hmm." Hiashi scratched his chin. "To put it simply… time."

Hinata blinked, and then her eyes went wide. She rocked back slightly, her mouth coming open.

"T-time?" she murmured.

Her father nodded stoically. "Though I hate to put it so simply, that is the easiest way of stating it. You'll understand yourself when you begin to see more: it can be… hard to explain otherwise."

"I…" Hinata hesitated again, her father watching her carefully. "I don't think I… how can we…"

"I'll get to that in a moment," Hiashi said firmly, and Hinata shut her mouth.

"Now, this acuity is the root of many of our most potent techniques, used in conjunction with our jūken. Do you remember when Neji used the Hakke Rokujūyon Shō?"

Eight Trigrams, Sixty-Four Palms: Hinata remembered Neji's invocation, which he'd hissed out seconds before he'd beat Naruto so viciously the boy hadn't risen from the ground for nearly a minute.

"I remember," she confirmed, wondering what her father was getting at.

"Do you remember his speed?" he shot back without blinking.

Hinata started, and cast her mind back to the arena.

"He was… fast," she said quietly, wondering why she'd never questioned it before.

Neji _had_ been fast. Impossibly fast. Throughout the fight, he had displayed incredible reaction time, but never the kind of raw speed he had used to close with Naruto so quickly the blond hadn't even had time to counterattack. The kind of speed that had ensured Hinata hadn't even seen him move.

Hiashi inclined his head solemnly. "That is the power of the upper levels of the Byakugan. Something that is never supposed to leave the Main House, and yet your cousin learned it anyway. His _certainty _in his actions allowed him to do the impossible."

Hinata licked her lips. "And what was that, exactly?"

"The Hakke Rokujūyon Shō, and others like it, operates by allowing the user to see a 'time' in which they are before to their opponent," Hiashi said simply. "Then, you place yourself there."

"But… how?" Hinata still didn't understand.

"Showing you 'how' is the root of what we will be doing today." Hiashi shifted back on his feet, ready to rise.

He continued. "As I said before: the sixty-four palms are beyond you unless you are completely sure that your strikes will land. That certainty is what allows you to rotate through time and place yourself not where you are, but where you _could _be. Once you have enough practice, it will even allow you to land every strike you envisioned, with perfect confidence, simultaneously."

Hiashi rose, shaking his head. "At the moment, that is something that is beyond even Neji." As Hinata pulled herself to her feet, he pinned her with his marble eyes. "However, Hinata… I believe you have the potential for such an act."

"M-me?" Hinata almost tripped as she stood up, barely regaining her composure.

"Of course," Hiashi said simply. "You are my daughter."

Hinata stared as her father fell into a jūken stance, his hands stretched out in front of him, his wrists relaxed. "Now," he said, uncaring of her stillness. "You must strike with perfect confidence. Otherwise, you will only take half measures."

He cocked one of his hands, gesturing her forward. "Let's begin."

###

Hinata pulled herself to her feet. Pain's chakra tensed around her, but didn't carry her. It licked against her tenketsu, but didn't permeate it.

Naruto watched her, despair plain on his face. Hinata could see Sakura, hundreds and hundreds of meters away, glancing worriedly at the Hyuuga next to her with a similar expression.

"Hinata…" he groaned, baring his teeth. "Go, please. You can't-"

"I can't go," she said back, quietly, her voice quavering. "I can't stop." She hesitated, all too aware of Pain watching the both of them.

She decided she didn't care.

"I love you, Naruto." It was barely a whisper, but it was enough.

She finished standing, turning away, towards Pain. She could see Naruto staring at her back, his mouth gaping, and his eyes wide. There was something more than terror in them.

Pain glared at her, his hand still raised.

"Answer my question," he ordered, and his chakra tightened around Hinata.

It didn't matter.

Hinata took a deep breath, dropping her head and slid one of her feet back. There was a curl of wind through the crater that had once been her home, stirring the dust around her sandal.

Pain's fingers curled, and the chakra sprung with them, reducing Hinata's weight to nothing, ready to fling her upwards with a single impulse.

She felt completely free.

"It's futile," he said coldly, staring at her with an odd sheen in his eyes. "Surely you realise that." The Akatsuki's leader took a step forward, hand still raised, fingers tensed, chakra swirling. "Why fight, when you _know_ you'll die?"

Hinata raised her head, expelling her breath. Her eyes were closed, the veins pulsing around them. Some of the blood from her forehead dripped into her tear duct.

That didn't matter either.

_There must not be a shred of doubt in your mind, not a single misguided worry._

She stiffened her hands, drawing them up besides her, and twisted her ankle, as if preparing to spin.

_If there is, you will fail._

"_Why_?" the man with orange hair rumbled.

Hinata opened her eyes, her face serene.

'_I won't fail. I _can't_.'_

"Because," she said with utter calm, her voice carrying perfectly over the dust and dirt, impossibly clear.

"You are within range of my divination."

Hinata spun, and time slipped aside.

Pain's eyes widened, and his chakra surged.

And the center of the crater exploded.

###

There are three legendary doujutsu in the shinobi world, and two of them belong to Konoha.

The Sharingan, the Byakugan, and the Rinnegan.

Had things gone differently, all three could have been within the hands of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and then a single small change would have become many.

But things went the way they did, and so they aren't, and now that is neither here nor there.

Ask any ninja what the powers of the Sharingan are, and you're likely to get as many different answers as there are ninja being asked.

It can read minds, it can copy jutsu, it can cast unbreakable illusions, it can build unbreakable armor, it can turn an unskilled genin into a merciless killer and it can turn a prodigy into a force of nature.

All this, and more.

For the most part, though these ninja wouldn't know it, they would be right.

The Sharingan bears the marks of significant influence by something older than recorded history: the power of the Jūbi, amplifying the Uchiha clan's natural talents. From their fire affinity is born unnatural black flames, and from their pursuit of a wonderful lie is brought a genjutsu that can create worlds, however temporary.

Yin and Yang. But once more, that's neither here nor there.

What is important is that the Sharingan understands all, though its wielder might not always be so lucky.

Ask any ninja what the Byakugan is capable of, and you won't receive nearly as much hearsay as you would about the Sharingan. The shinobi of the Five Nations are confident they understand the capabilities of the Hyuuga's distinctive pale eyes.

Telescopic, all-encompassing vision, capable of perceiving chakra itself; the Byakugan sees everything.

This is true. But it's not everything the Byakugan can do.

The irony that the doujutsu thought to be the best understood holds a secret that most would consider puts the others to shame is, of course, lost on everyone but the heads of the clan.

The Byakugan can see all. This includes, as Hiashi would say, 'time'.

Time is a misnomer, of course. It's _possibility_ that the Byakugan can see: both in the past, and the future.

But the effect is essentially the same, and so for ease of classification, it can be called 'time'.

What the Hyuuga can see, the Hyuuga can touch.

It's from this bizarre trait of perception that the Hyuuga pull their most devastating tricks: the Eight-Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms and its variants, which allow a Hyuuga to spin through probability itself and place themselves precisely where they need to be.

But, also as Hiashi would say, it's not something for the faint of heart. Attempting the Hakke Rokujūyon Shō sends a Hyuuga adrift in time for a fraction of infinity: without a clear objective, being lost becomes a real possibility, just like any other.

Thus, the Byakugan sees all.

The Rinnegan is the most mysterious of the legendary eyes. They were the sole purview of the Sage of the Six Paths himself, he who created the shinobi world.

Nearly everyone who knows of them regards them as a myth (though many of Konoha's ninja now know otherwise). After all, they have nothing but impossible feats to their name: mastering all jutsu, creating the moon, and other such ridiculous things.

All true, in reality. But who would believe it?

There is only one pair of Rinnegan in existence, and they are much older than the man whose sockets they're placed in.

But that's neither here nor there.

What does matter is that the Rinnegan knows all.

And so, these three legendary eyes cover every aspect of reality.

The Byakugan sees all, the Sharingan understands all, and the Rinnegan knows all.

For example, let us see how these eyes perceived Naruto Uzumaki.

The Byakugan saw that Naruto was a failure, but couldn't understand what he would become.

The Sharingan understood that Naruto was powerful, but didn't know why.

The Rinnegan knew why Naruto was powerful, but couldn't see how he would use it.

With this in mind, perhaps it will be easier to understand precisely what happened to Hinata Hyuuga as she unclasped herself from time and embraced possibility, at the precise moment Pain struck her with all his indomitable strength.

###

Konoha vanished, along with Naruto and Pain.

The world shortly followed.

Hinata found herself nowhere.

Drifting through utter darkness. Flying into blinding light. Falling through nothing. She could have been in the depths of space, or within the center of a star.

It made no difference. In either case, she had nothing to find her way.

'_Did I fail?'_

Yes, she had. Of course she had. Hinata had always been a-

_Pain, staring at her with wide eyes, a snarl on his face. _

"_Two Strikes."_

_His hand fell limp. _

"_Four Strikes." _

_His left arm followed._

_Eight Strikes-"_

No, she hadn't.

She had executed the Sixty-Four Palms perfectly. It had gone exactly as her father had told her it would.

But something had gone wrong.

Pain had still hit her.

From their brief engagement, she'd thought that he'd been able to control some aspect of gravity.

Now, she was beginning to question that.

'_Where am I?'_

Impossible to know; the Byakugan saw all, but that didn't help Hinata one whit here.

And yet…

'_Adrift.'_

Yes. That's what she was.

She was adrift.

With the concept solid in her mind, the nowhere shifted. Falling and flying ceased to be: now, Hinata seemed to be lying on her back in an invisible ocean, staring up into an ever-shifting blankness.

Hinata blinked, but it didn't change a thing.

It hurt to look at, but she couldn't shut it out, even by closing her eyes. Her Byakugan wouldn't deactivate.

'_I have to get out of here. I'm not supposed to be here. This is wrong.'_

'_Oh god. What I if I don't get out. What if I can't-'_

Hinata stomped down on the thought without mercy, forcing herself not to panic. Naruto still needed her help: if she got herself stuck here, she wouldn't be the only one in trouble.

How had this even happened? She'd seen herself in front of Pain, seen herself slamming his tenketsu shut, seen him falling to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, seen herself collapsing a moment after…

And then Pain had struck her. Sent her flying. Not with gravity, though it had been the same jutsu. That push had been a _demand_.

_Get back_.

Even though she'd no longer been rooted in reality, had already stepped into the 'maybe' between possibility and realization, he'd pushed her anyway.

And now she was here, drifting through…

_Time_, Hinata realized, her eyes widening as she took in the nothing around her.

With that thought, the absence of everything vanished, replaced by a set of concentric rings, eerily like the Rinnegan, before splitting once more and becoming a spiral. Hinata bent with it, watching herself twist out of shape.

With a thought, she put herself back into her own familiar form. Hinata was _Hinata_, not a spreading set of lilac coils.

The spiral shattered at the action, endlessly long fragments of it forming uncountable straight lines, drifting into a lattice of ever changing colors around her.

Hinata looked around, no longer drifting. She stood amidst an impossible, utterly black space, thousands of streams falling around her.

Hesitating, she reached out towards the closest one, which gleamed a familiar lavender color.

Her fingers brushed it. The whisper of a familiar warm night's air brushed back.

Hinata pulled her hand away, staring at the stream in shock.

She paused, unable to understand what she'd just felt, and then took a step forward, slowly pushing her whole hand into the gleaming line.

She just remained there for a moment, feeling the light breeze against her hand.

Then, the stream twisted, pulsing darker lavender for a moment.

'_Uh oh.'_

Hinata's Byakugan went wide, and she tried to jump back.

Tried, because her hand refused to leave the line, which was rapidly deforming into something else entirely.

As Hinata struggled, shaking her arm, looking frantically about for something to help he get free, to get leverage on, knowing there was nothing but searching anyway, the line-turned-ribbon curled up, looming over her, and then swept down.

She snapped her head back to it, her mouth set in a determined line.

But that didn't matter. What could she do to something like this?

The lavender ribbon fell over her, curling around her, tying her in place, squeezing with the weight of history.

Hinata tried spinning, ejecting chakra, flaring her Byakugan. Nothing worked.

And so, with a final, desperate cry, the twisted stream covered her completely, and then she was gone.

###

She hit something hard a moment later. Ridges: a sloped, tiled roof.

Hinata bounced. Her broken ribs ground together, and she whimpered.

Everything else, unfortunately, seemed numb. She had trouble moving her limbs: her chakra was sluggish.

After the moment/eternity spent in the nothing, figuring out how her arms and legs worked was more challenging than it should have been.

Her Byakugan was off. Finally. Hinata was tired of seeing everything.

She tried to shift her head, barely able to twist it to the side.

Where was she now? Had she gotten back to Naruto? And if she had, where was-

Hinata froze, finally having shifted her head enough to get a look at something besides tiling.

She was staring up into the night sky.

_Night_ sky.

How long had she been gone? Or, how _far _had she gone? There wasn't a tiled roof left in Konoha: she must be entirely out of the village.

Out of the village, staring up into the night sky, listening to a troupe of cicada, unable to bring a coherent thought together in her scattered mind…

And slipping.

Hinata groaned, slapping a hand out and trying to get a grip on the slick, _sloping _roof.

She failed. Her chakra quivered around her hand, unable to assist her hand and stick it to the roof, and she tumbled off the ledge, yelping in alarm as she did.

And then landed a moment later on top of whatever unfortunate soul had been walking by beneath, bringing them down in a flurry of limbs and a shout of alarm.

Hinata rolled over, groaning. "S-sorry," she said by reflex. "I didn't mean to-"

She paused.

"What are you doing?" she said quietly.

She'd fallen on top of a man dressed in all black, like a backstage Kabuki actor. He had a balaclava pulled over his head, concealing his features. It left his cold grey eyes the only discernable thing about him.

He was carrying a little girl in his arms, dressed in a fine kimono. Her eyes were closed: sleeping, or unconscious. She hung completely limp.

She looked just like Hanabi Hyuuga. Just like Hinata's younger sister.

Which would be impossible, because Hinata couldn't be in Konoha, and even if she somehow was Hanabi _definitely_ wasn't, and she couldn't recall the last time the girl had worn anything but her new light flak jacket.

And yet, here she was, held by a stranger, and utterly helpless.

Hinata pulled herself to her feet. Her chakra was still in flux, but her legs felt steady. Something cold was gushing through her, and her eyes narrowed at the sensation, the Byakugan straining and failing to activate.

The man, watching her cautiously, mirrored her actions. He kept Hanabi between himself and her, almost like a shield.

"Put her down," Hinata said as calmly as possible, and then she coughed up a splash of blood. Her ribs were still burning: most were broken.

The man's eyes narrowed, and then he turned and ran.

Hinata sprinted after him, completely uncaring of the pain in her chest.

The pursuit barely lasted a moment. Hinata may have been injured, but carrying Hanabi slowed the man, and Hinata drew up behind him in little more than two seconds.

He didn't give her the initiative. He immediately spun into a high kick, aiming to take her out with a blow to the temple. Hinata brought her arm up, neatly blocking it, and winced at the impact.

She considered attempting to close the tenketsu in his leg in the frozen moment he hung in the air, his kick stopped cold, before deciding not to: her chakra was far too unstable to try such a delicate technique.

Jūken wasn't going to work. She'd have to do this more conventionally.

So she punched straight out with a loose hand.

The man's other leg came up, diverting her straight-arm… and Hinata leapt into the air, leading with her knee, and slammed it into the kidnapper's crotch.

The first sound Hinata had ever heard the man make was a choked squeak.

He dropped Hanabi and fell back, and Hinata landed with a muffled crunch on the gravel beneath her, catching her sister effortlessly as she did.

She set Hanabi gently on the ground, brushing the smaller girl's hair back from her sweating forehead, and stood back up, staring at the man with cold eyes.

Her glared back, standing bowlegged, the humid night air ruffling his balaclava.

"Why are you here?" Hinata asked, shifting her hand back. Her doujutsu still reused to activate. "For the Byakugan?"

The man in black refused to answer her, circling to the left, his eyes shifting her and Hanabi… and their foreheads.

'_He's looking for the seal.'_

There was no doubt about it. He was definitely trying to steal the Byakugan.

Hinata circled with the man, keeping herself between him and Hanabi. His hands flexed, wandering down towards a pouch on his hip.

Another couple drops of blood ran into her eyes, and she blinked heavily, clearing them. The man didn't take the advantage, remaining where he was.

"You should leave," Hinata said, staring right into his eyes, her own stinging. "I don't know what's going on, but you can't win today."

The kidnapper just cocked his head, and then _moved_: the hand dipped and rose, a kunai gleaming in it, and he flung it forward, diving behind it, intent on Hanabi.

Hinata stepped forward, completely ignoring the kunai, and kicked the man in the face as he completed his roll.

The knife dug into her left shoulder in the same moment, but that didn't stop her from drawing her foot back and kicking again, breaking the man's noise with a distinctive 'crack'.

And then, the man exploded into a miniature lightning storm.

The Hyuuga screamed, stumbling backwards, parts of her jacket catching fire. If the pain in her ribs had been her body burning, than this was being kicked off of a snowy peek into an active volcano.

A lightning clone. How had he-

Of course. When she'd gotten blood in her eyes. He'd used the opportunity to substitute himself for one, and then sent it at her on a suicide mission.

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid _stupid_. She really was useless, falling for something so _obvious_.

She grit her teeth, lightning still playing over the metal parts of her jacket and causing her fingers to jerk with unconscious tics.

Where was he?

She blinked, catching something in her peripheral vision, and turned just in time to see the man shoot forward and sweep her feet out from under her.

Hinata hit the gravel with a painful sounding crunch, rolling to the side and avoiding another brutal kick. She completed the motion, and her hands came up, catching the follow-up.

She and the man in black strained for a moment, glaring at each other: his foot poised over her throat, and her hands clutching it, holding it in place.

The man had lost his balaclava at some point, and his face was revealed to Hinata: craggy, with a sharp goatee, and a patch over his left eye.

He bent down, doubling the weight on his foot. "You've already made too much noise," he hissed, pressing down. Hinata grunted with effort, her hands trembling. Her vision was going dark: the lightning clone hadn't done her other injuries any favors.

"Just _die_," the man snarled, and raised his foot, stomping it down.

'_Mistake.'_

Hinata jerked her head to the side, and the foot crashed down next to her, flinging a shard of gravel into her ear and dirtying her hair. She ignored both sensations and swept her hands out, wrapping them around the man's leg and dragging him to the floor.

He dropped with a frustrated yell, and Hinata rolled on top of him, her hands balling into fists.

"I won't die," she growled, punching the man in his sneering face. His head smashed into the gravel, bouncing back up.

Hinata punched him again.

"I made a promise!"

The man's nose broke for real, and blood sprayed across Hinata's knuckles.

"And I never go back on my word!"

A spasm of her chakra shot through her hands on her final strike, hitting the man in the forehead.

He immediately slumped, unconscious, breathing shallowly through his swelling mouth and shattered nose. Hinata panted, staring down at him, expecting him to rise again.

He didn't.

That was it?

She laughed, her entire body aching, and fell to the side, toppling off the man's insensible body.

Compared to Pain, that had been nothing.

She pulled herself up on her hands and knees, breathing raggedly, and slowly crawled to Hanabi, before collapsing again, more blood running from her mouth.

Her eyes started to slide closed. She was so tired… maybe it would be better just to find Naruto later…

They snapped back open when she realized that Hanabi was awake.

The little girl was staring at her, a terrified look on her face. She was slowly pulling herself onto her knees.

Hinata smiled. Considering the blood staining her teeth, it probably wasn't the most encouraging one.

"Hanabi. You're okay." She closed her eyes for a moment, exhaustion overcoming her. "It's all okay."

"Who are you?" the little girl quavered. Hinata cracked an eye, staring at her.

"What do you mean?" she slurred, her tongue becoming just as numb as the rest of her. "Don't you recognize me?"

The little girl shook her head, and Hinata opened both of her eyes, trying to struggle to her feet. She barely made it to her knee.

"Hanabi," she said seriously, exhaustion turning her voice into a rasp. "It's me, Hinata."

The little girl in a kimono just stared at her with wide eyes.

"But _I'm _Hinata," she said, her confusion only making her look more adorable.

Hinata froze, staring at the girl she'd thought was her little sister.

"What?" she whispered.

"How odd."

The deep, familiar voice pierced the night air like a flare, and Hinata twisted towards it, almost losing her tenuous balance on her knee as she did so.

She found Hiashi Hyuuga staring at her, an eyebrow cocked, standing with his arms crossed above the unconscious kidnapper, staring her down.

"I considered stepping in, but seeing as how things have gone…" Hiashi shrugged, kicking the man at his side seemingly as an afterthought.

"So," he said in a curious voice, nothing like the iron-hard one which normally greeted Hinata at home.

"What did you say your name was, child?"

Hinata stared at her father, who gazed back at her without an ounce of recognition.

Instead of answering, her eyes rolled back up into her head, and she crashed face-first to the gravel, completely out cold.

"Hmm," Hiashi said, striding forward. He gestured to his daughter, taking her hand after she stumbled over to him.

"Come, Hinata," he said, leaning down and gently slinging the unconscious woman over his shoulder.

"I suppose answers will have to wait."

###

**AN: Hmm. **

**So, this isn't Not Sick. Or Obito-Sensei. Still working on both of those, by the way. **

**But I noticed a dearth of good Hinata time-travel fics, and decided that if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. **

**And so, this exists.**

**Also, as I'm sure you noticed: Byakugan in this fic? _Hilariously _overpowered (provided you have the right mindset). It's going to get... pretty ridiculous. **

**So that should be a lot of fun.**

**Serendipity, out.**


	2. Chapter 2

The Girl Who Spun Through Time

Chapter 2

_Oh? What is this wandering soul?_

* * *

Hinata didn't wake quickly.

The world slipped back to her, seeping into her consciousness, leaking into the cracks in her brain. Shapes, vague shapes: a grey mass kneeling to her left, the arch of a ceiling.

Colors came soon after, but almost nothing changed. The grey lightened, going dull-white. The ceiling was colorless.

Hinata, still not truly awake, closed her eyes.

Sounds. Sounds were next.

Muffled murmurs, from the wall to her left. A slight creak: someone shifting on a wooden floor, uncaring of any noise they might make.

Her own breathing, uneven but deep. Blood, thrumming through her body, pounding in her head. Her fingers were numb.

Touch.

She was wrapped in something warm, covering her entire body: her arms were at her sides. The floor beneath her was soft, with something hard beneath it: a mat over lacquered wood.

Everything ached. Not hurt: not the persistent burn or stabbing or _pulsing _of an actual injury. But her whole body felt bruised and sore: like something had been forced through her veins, like her skin had been stripped off and then sloppily reapplied.

She wasn't wearing her jacket. Wondering what had happened to it wandered towards her brain, got waylaid around the nape of her neck, and coiled there, waiting to come up later.

Hinata opened her eyes, and blinked.

She turned her head, and found an eerily familiar face to her left.

It was a little boy. He stared at her with pale, blank eyes, his brow furrowed slightly. There was a strip of bandages tied around it. His cheeks were still puffy with baby fat, but his angular chin had begun to emerge from the mounds they formed in his face.

Hinata blinked again.

The little boy looked just like Neji Hyuuga, if he were many years younger.

"Am I awake?" she asked, her voice quiet, barely an exhalation. The boy stared back, silent for a moment.

"Apparently," he said.

Hinata tried to smile, but gave up after a moment, the effort of moving her mouth into the proper shape too much to ask. She settled for hoping the expression made it into her eyes.

"That's good," she said, lying back and staring up at the ceiling again.

Where was she? She'd been in the village, looking for Sakura.

No.

No, that wasn't right.

She'd been… somewhere. There'd been a man. He'd kidnapped Hanabi.

She had fought him. She'd been hurt…

Had he hurt her?

Hinata frowned, her Byakugan unconsciously pulsing.

No. Could he have? She hadn't been able to even use the Gentle Fist, and she'd beaten him. She remembered that.

What had-

'_I love you, Naruto.'_

The village. Pain. The Sixty-Four Palms.

Naruto.

Hinata's eyes snapped wide open, and she lurched to her feet.

Or tried to.

She didn't even make it halfway before her body gave up on the effort and sent her crashing down on her side. She yelped, her sides and ribs protesting viciously.

The boy rushed to her side, his eyes wide, and Hinata ignored him completely, scrambling forward. Her hands slipped on the hardwood floor, and she fell again, banging her chin. Her blanket slipped off, leaving her all too aware of the chill wood below her.

"Father!" the boy yelped, watching her carefully. "She's-"

Hinata twisted towards him, distantly hearing a door slide open.

"I have to go!" she panted. "Naruto… he's in trouble! I have to-"

"Go where?" a calm, familiar voice rolled over her, and Hinata did her best to spin towards it, managing to prop herself up on one arm.

Her father's stern face stared down at her, silhouetted against the early morning sun pouring in through the doorway behind him.

But there was something wrong with it. Hinata blinked, focusing. Less stress marks and wrinkles, softer cheeks, warmer eyes… and a forehead protector, which her father almost never wore.

Nevertheless, the man looked just like Hiashi, despite undeniably being _not_.

"Father?" The words slipped out of Hinata's mouth before she could check them, as she finished making it to her knees. She rose slowly, her left leg shaking. "Is that you? What's going on? Naruto's in trouble! The Leaf…"

The man blinked, and there was a crushing silence as he stared at her. Hinata unconsciously trembled: even if the man seemed subtly different, his stare was the same.

"What about the Leaf?" he finally said, his tone careful.

"It… it's been destroyed." The man jerked back, his eyes going wide, but Hinata barely noticed, the devastation of her home flashing through her mind. "We have to go back as soon as we can!" Hinata looked around. "Where are we? I thought you and Hanabi were-"

'_But I'm Hinata.'_

Hinata froze, her whole body stiffening, and her breathing suddenly cutting off. Both of the other Hyuuga in the room watched her, the boy sliding to his father's side.

She tried to activate her Byakugan, and her eyes _burned_. Hinata stumbled backwards, clutching at her face. The man who wasn't her father took a cautious step towards her.

Hinata grimaced, and brought her hands up into a focusing kai sign. She hadn't had to use crutches like this for years. The man's pace quickened, and her drew closer.

"_Byakugan_," she muttered firmly, and the world spiraled out around her. She ignored the twinge that shot through her skull.

She _saw_.

Konoha. _Konoha_.

The Hokage's tower, the academy, the towering walls. The Hyuuga grounds sprawling out around her, the crowded apartment blocks, ANBU winging across the rooftops, crowded marketplaces. Children laughing in the streets, adults watching them out of the corner of their eyes, the abandoned Uchiha district…

Wasn't abandoned.

Hinata stayed like that for what seemed like hours, drinking in her unbroken home. The other two Hyuuga stared at her, clearly not understanding her reaction.

Eventually, she took a deep, steady breath, and allowed her straining eyes to deactivate, the invisible pressure that had been building in her head leaving them burning.

"What's going on?" she asked, her voice steady. She clenched one of her hands. "We're in the village. How is that possible? Who are you?"

The man watched her, before glancing down at the little boy at his side. The pale boy looked up at him, trying to keep his eye on Hinata at the same time.

"Neji," he murmured. "Go get your uncle, right now."

Hinata watched the boy leave with wide eyes. "Neji?" she whispered.

The older man whipped his head towards her. "What did you say?"

"_That's _Neji?" Hinata asked him, her head feeling hollow. "I don't…" she stumbled back a step, sinking to the ground. She shook her head, and looked back at the man. "And you're… his father?"

"Of course," the man said patiently. "Hizashi Hyuuga."

Hinata shook her head again. "That's impossible. You're dead. And the village is gone…"

Her breathing picked up, edging towards hyperventilation. "What's happening? I have to... I don't…"

"It seems," another voice cut in, "that you've had an interesting mishap."

Both Hinata and Hizashi turned, and found a man who looked completely identical to Hizashi standing in the doorway, the little boy who couldn't _possibly _be Neji besides him.

Hinata stared without comprehension. _That _was, without a doubt, her father.

Just to be sure…

"Hiashi Hyuuga?" she said, her voice trembling.

Her father nodded, and Hinata just continued to stare, unable to understand what she could be seeing.

"And what is your name?" he asked, his mouth set in a characteristic line.

"Hinata," she whispered. "Hinata Hyuuga."

Hiashi crossed his arms. "As I thought." He glanced at his brother, and then meaningfully at Neji. Hizashi bowed slightly, and went to his son's side, taking his hand and leading him out the door.

Hiashi stared at her over his crossed arms. "Get up," he said softly, and Hinata scrambled to her feet. "We've got a lot to talk about."

"What's going on?" Hinata asked for the third time. "I don't understand what's-"

"You've traveled through time," Hiashi said bluntly.

The words snapped Hinata out of her shock, and for a moment, she just stared at her father. A thousand questions ran through her mind, and her leg started jittering again.

But eventually, what emerged from her mouth was a lonesome, timid, "What?"

Hiashi uncrossed his arms, striding towards her. His Byakugan pulsed into existence, the veins pushing the skin of his temple up.

"You have done something that has only been accomplished once before in the entire history of this clan," he said, his bluntness not fading. Then, he hesitated. "And… you're my daughter, aren't you?"

It wasn't really a question, but Hinata nodded anyway. Her father chuckled, lowering his head.

"Remarkable," he muttered, before regaining his composure. He continued walking towards her. "But something is strange about this."

"What-" Hinata didn't understand the look in her father's eyes. He bent in, the near invisible pupil of his Byakugan tightening, and stared intently into her eyes. Hinata almost activated her doujutsu by reflex: she'd never seen her father look at _anything _like that.

"Your eyes are barely damaged: they'll certainly heal, though not quickly," he said, his voice equal parts confused and curious. He leaned back. "Tell me: how did you do this? And why?"

"I.. why?" Hinata asked. "It w-wasn't on purpose. I tried to use the sixty-four palms-"

Hiashi cocked an eyebrow. "And you ended up back here?"

"No. I was fighting someone… he hit me with his jutsu in the middle of the technique."

Her father's eyes grew indefinably sharper. "Your opponent struck you _as _you executed the sixty-four palms?"

Hinata blinked at his tone. "No, during. I was already… 'loose', is what you called it."

Hiashi frowned. "That's impossible. How could they have known when to strike, then?"

"He wasn't an ordinary shinobi," Hinata said. "He had these eyes… they were purple, with rings around the pupil. I'd never seen anything like them."

Hiashi sucked in a breath. "_Rinnegan_?"

"I don't know," Hinata admitted. "But he destroyed the Hidden Leaf with a single jutsu." Her leg wouldn't stop jittering, and she clamped a hand down on it, trying to stop the nervous motion. "There were a lot of casualties… if it weren't for Lady Tsunade, I doubt anyone would have survived."

"Tsunade?" Hiashi muttered. "Wait, no." He shook his head: the motion looked the same as Hinata's. "When… how old are you, Hinata?"

"Seventeen."

Hiashi smiled dimly. "Grown up so fast… and I haven't even seen it yet." He frowned. "Fourteen years? That's all the village has left?"

He stared off into the distance, and for a moment, Hinata was left alone with her thoughts. She stared at her blurred reflection in the hardwood, the glow of an overhead lamp obliterating her face's features.

Despite being alone with them, Hinata didn't have many thoughts. Instead, there was just one repeating itself over and over in her head.

'_Time travel?'_

It made sense, in a way she never thought she'd have to rationalize. The Byakugan could see 'time', and what the Byakguan could see, the Hyuuga could touch. That was how the sixty-four palms worked.

But the trigram techniques just 'unstuck' the user in time, allowing them to place themselves in a place they _could _be, instead of where they _were_. Moving _through _time, let alone backwards through it fourteen years, made no sense.

Unless…

'_Get back.'_

Pain's jutsu. The _push_. What had he called it?

Shinra Tensei. Heavenly Push. Or Almighty: she'd never seen Pain write down the jutsu's name, and it could be either.

The semantics didn't matter. Whatever the Shinra Tensei had done, it had _pushed _her while she was still in the untethered state between _could _and _were_.

And now, she was fourteen years back in the past.

What had happened to the present? To Naruto, and the Village Hidden in the Leaves?

Were they just _gone_? Unmade by her presence here? Or were they still there, waiting in the future, moving on without her?

Was Naruto already dead?

No. Even if the future were still moving forward, it would take three days for him to have the Kyuubi taken from him. Probably more, if what Sakura had told her about Gaara stayed true.

Did it even matter, though? Now that she was back…

Hinata's eyes went wide, and Hiashi glanced at her.

She could change _everything_.

The first Chunin Exams, and the Sound Invasion. Sasuke Uchiha's flight from the Village. Pain's attack-

Wait.

Hinata almost fell down as her father watched her with concern. She wasn't thinking big enough.

The Uchiha were _still alive_. So was the Sandaime, and Naruto's master, Jiraiya the Toad Sage.

And _Hizashi_. She'd saved Neji's father. That man she'd fought had been after the Byakugan, after _her_. He had been the Cloud's 'ambassador' who Hizashi had been killed for, in the name of averting war.

Hinata, seated on the floor, giggled as her father watched in perplexed amusement. She'd saved her uncle by falling off a roof.

If Neji still existed, she was sure he'd find that funny, in a strange way.

Her father, after watching her for a second, spoke up. "We have to go," he said. "I mustn't be the only one you pass this information to."

"Go?" Hinata laughed almost manically, her ribs aching. Her whole body was shaking. Why had _she _been the one sent back like this? She couldn't possibly hope to change enough… she just might end up making it worse.

It should have been Naruto. He would have been able to make a change. As it was he was just…

Three years old. And more alone than ever.

"Go where?" she asked her father, picking herself up off the floor. He gave her an odd look, which she ignored.

It didn't matter if she couldn't hope to change enough. She had to try. Giving up now would be failing everyone Pain had killed.

No, not just them. Anyone who'd _ever _died to anything Hinata knew about. There was no excuse: she could save them _all_.

And Naruto, in the bargain.

Hiashi eventually gave up on trying to figure out what his daughter was saying, and shrugged, turning back towards the door he'd entered through. He strode forward, his pace urgent, and Hinata hurried after him, ignoring the constant soreness that every step made worse.

"To the Hokage, of course."

* * *

**Well.**

**This has been frustrating.**

**Real life has been doing it's best to murder me: I've beaten it off for now. My writing, unfortunately, has been a casualty. **

**This is the shortest chapter I've ever written for a story. It's also one of the worst... but it's really not okay to leave something so simple sitting for a month. Hopefully, the next one will be better.  
**

**Serendipity, out.**


End file.
